Mystery Jets share deeply personal single ‘Soul River’
Mystery Jets have shared a powerful new song called ‘Soul River’ from their upcoming album. The track serves as the latest preview from the Twickenham indie-rockers’ highly anticipated seventh studio album, ‘A Hole To See The Sky Through’, which is currently available for pre-order.
Set for release on August 21 via Fiction Records, the record takes its title from Yoko Ono’s minimalist masterpiece of the same name. The band was granted special permission by the artist to use her original work—a simple white postcard with a circle cut out—as the album’s cover art.
Following the release of the psych-rock anthem ‘Black Sage’ and the project’s title track, ‘Soul River’ offers a more tender and emotive perspective on the upcoming collection. The song was written in memory of a cherished figure from the band’s hometown of Eel Pie Island, whom the group describes as a “guardian spirit” of their community. The lyrics pay a heartfelt tribute to a life lost to suicide.
“The song is a celebration of a life cut short but one which lives on in our memory and our music,” Blaine Harrison and his bandmates shared. The release stands as one of their most poignant and vulnerable compositions to date.
The new album was crafted in the years following the band’s 2020 record ‘A Billion Heartbeats’ and was recorded alongside producer Leo Abrahams, known for his work with Brian Eno and Frightened Rabbit, at his East London studio. Much like ‘Soul River’, the album explores complex themes including freedom, forgiveness, trauma, and wisdom.
According to a recent press release, the album completes a thematic trilogy, shifting from the sky-gazing perspective of 2016’s ‘Curve Of The Earth’ and the street-level focus of ‘A Billion Heartbeats’ to a gaze cast “back up from the void, to the cosmic again.”
In support of the new music, Mystery Jets have announced a tour across the UK and Ireland, beginning at the SWG2 Studio Warehouse in Glasgow on November 22, with a headline show at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town to follow.
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